Buried In The Snow

An avalanche turned a luxury hotel into an icy coffin, with little chance of finding survivors. But rescuers refused to stop digging through the debris.

- Joshua Hammer

HE WAS PINNED in the darkness by the weight of beams and walls, ice and earth. What happened? Where am I?

Lying on his stomach, he surveyed what he could: His left leg had been twisted and thrust forward, so that his foot rested near his cheek. He could move his left arm, but his right arm and leg were crushed beneath something enormous. He realized with horror that his chin rested on the knee of a corpse. He tried to still the panic, to recall the moments before everything went dark.

He had been speaking to his wife. They were standing in a doorway. And then: the whistling gust of wind; the sense of tumbling through space; the sounds of coughing, moaning; and the horrifying silence that followed. Had it been an earthquake? He called to his wife but heard no answer.

“Giampaolo? Giampaolo?” a woman cried. She was close. And she was trapped here too. “Are you alive?”

“I’m alive!” he shouted. “I’m alive.”

NESTLED ON THE flanks of Italy’s Apennine Mountains, about 100 miles northeast of Rome, the Hotel Rigopiano had never been easy to reach. But its isolation only added to its appeal, attracting Italian pop stars and other celebrities, such as George Clooney.

In January 2017, snow began to fall across the Apennines. For days it came down, and the enormous drifts ringing the Rigopiano grew taller by the hour.

From his home in the Rome suburbs, Giampaolo Matrone watched the weather with concern. He and his wife, Valentina Cicioni, had planned an overnight getaway to the hotel. But now he wondered whether they should go. Matrone phoned the Rigopiano. Its owner, Roberto Del Rosso, said Matrone simply needed chains on his tires. “Tranquilo,” Del Rosso said. “It won’t be a problem.”